


creature memory

by boyghosts



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, quick drabble that's supposed to be part one of a longer fic, strums guitar to the tune of soft shance being gentle and supportive of each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 19:49:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8115238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyghosts/pseuds/boyghosts
Summary: Tell me, the voice the hand belongs to asks him, gentle and coaxing and sweet as a song, who do you belong? and Shiro slips right through.
When the dreams come, Lance is there.





	

**Author's Note:**

> in other news, my present tense lower case aesthetic returns from the war. i welcome it home with shaking hands; i know it'll be gone by morning

As always, the clock resets: sleep stutters on the last few seconds of its reel, and Shiro wakes and remembers. Shiro always remembers; his body never lets him forget. He’s a pair of eyes, first, getting acquainted with the ceiling—then, a pair of lungs, then, a spine. A body clothed in too-thin skin. An arm of flesh and brittle bone, and the other—

As always, he ends up here. Old news, too bad; time to shuck off memory’s dirty hands and shrug on the new day. But the cold sings in the pockets of his clothes, as his body needles him for all it lacks and still does. That’s the thing with pain; pull out the thorn and all you feel after is it’s absence. All you are is the grisly tattered shape it once occupied. Dead, once. Owned, once.

 _You’ll always be ours_ , says the slivered voice from the open grave—his. It’s raining and cold earth slithers in, obscuring the stars above. Shiro knows it shouldn’t be possible to dream while he’s already awake, but here he is again anyway, forgetting the stars as he stands knee-deep in the tomb of his own making. _Always_ , the voice promises, dark and hissing, and Shiro flounders through the sludge, strains his neck out of the pit.

 _You’re wrong_ , he manages to croak. _I’m not yours. I’m not anyone’s._

Laughter, from the sickle-moon peering from above. Shiro’s been to this place many times. He knows its sick machinations. He knows what happens next.

But: a hand thrusts through the congealing, choking dark and pulls him up by the wrist. Shiro breaks through the surface—he spits out soil and dead flowers, thrashes desperately to free himself from the roots tangling his ankles that keep him there.

 _Tell me_ , the voice the hand belongs to asks him, gentle and coaxing and sweet as a song, _who do you belong?_ and Shiro slips right through.

 _Me_ , Shiro gasps, into the night. _I’m mine. I’m mine, I’m mine, I’m mine—_

“Shh, I hear you,” someone whispers; this voice, too, he’s revisited. Palms press against each cheek, real skin and warmth taking shape. Shiro prays for wakefulness. “You’re right. I know. I know, Shiro.”

“I’m—“

“Yeah, that’s right, Shiro, that’s right,” and Shiro shivers: Lance. Shivers again, at the chafing burn in his throat. The hand on his cheek moves to his hair, stroking lines down his scalp until he calms and quiets against the sheets. “Breathe, I know. I know. There ya go, see? Hey, just like that. Just like that. You’re okay. See? I’m right here, Shiro—“

“My name,” Shiro says feverishly; sweat is cooling on his forehead. “Shiro; that’s my name.”

“That’s right, buddy. Yeah. That’s right, that’s—hey, come back to me, won’t you? I’m right here, babe. I’m right here with you.”

“Lance.” Shiro’s eyes blink, seeking for light; he can see the muddled shape of Lance’s head, hovering above him. Something inside him stops rattling.

“Yeah, m’right here,” Lance’s voice drops like a stone. The hand in Shiro’s hair smooths down the side of his face, trailing down his elbow to twine his fingers slowly. Forefinger to pinky, then thumb last, closing as a lock against the stuttering pulse of his palm. Shiro’s lungs expand.

“Lance,” Shiro repeats.

“You found me,” Lance says. “You wanna go back to sleep?”

Shiro’s hand is very, very warm. “I… sleep?”

“Yes—just a dream, was all just a dream, babe, but you’re back now. Can you go back to sleep?”

“I—“

But Shiro is already drifting. When he goes, he goes quickly and without warning, anchored by the hand in his.

This time, he dreams of nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> suddenly i look at you  
> and all the mirrors vanish from my min[d](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kzhLgDmgzg)


End file.
